DreamHack Austin Preview

As one of the biggest cross-game tournaments of the year, DreamHack Austin features some of the best teams and players from around the world. As the name of the tournament would suggest, the tournament will be played in Austin, Texas. The competitions in the tournament will include, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, StarCraft II, Heartstone, Street Fighter IV, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Heroes of the Storm, Pokken, and Payday 2.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

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The CS:GO portion of the tournament will feature eight teams fighting for a share of the $100,000 prize pool and $50,000 first place prize. The eight teams that are participating are Counter Logic Gaming, Team Liquid, Luminosity Gaming, Tempo Storm, NRG Esports, Splyce, Cloud9, and Selfless Gaming. All eight teams are currently based in North America. Luminosity Gaming should be favored to win the event because of how well they have played in recent tournaments and also the fact that they are the previous major winners. Recent online results has seen them defeat every single North American team they faced.

Starcraft II

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For the Starcraft II part of the tournament, 96 players will play for a chance at $50,000 and the coveted 5,000 WCS circuit points. Some of the participants include players from the dominant region of Korea such as viOLet, Polt, SNute, and Hydra. These players have achieved numerous accomplishments over the last few years and have risen to prominence in international tournaments. It’s quite easy to say that one of these four should be taking the title, but there are several other competitors who could give the Koreans a run for their money.

Super Smash Bros. Melee

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During the last big Melee tournament, we saw Hungrybox falling to Armada in the grand finals at Smash Summit II. This time, Hungrybox has a huge advantage in this tournament because his biggest rival this year will not be attending the tournament. The only other “Gods of Melee” to attend is Mew2King who has not had the best year so far. Other notable names include Axe, Leffen, Lucky, MacD, Wobbles, Westballz, and many more players. Hungrybox definitely has the advantage in this field, but then again, Melee is an unpredictable game.

Heroes of the Storm

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For HotS, the prize pool will be $100,000 with eight teams from North America battling it out to claim a piece of the prize. All eight teams had to go through a lengthy qualifying process and each has a chance of winning as there is not a clear cut favorite to take the title.

Heartstone

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Heartstone is the final “big” game that will be part of DreamHack Austin. The competition features 200 competitors in a huge opening swiss with the top 16 players moving onto the knockout, single elimination stages. The first place prize is $8,000 with all the playoff spots being paid out.